The car slowly stopped in front of their villa. Damien walked out of the car with a look of exhaustion. He had attended twenty meetings back to back to secure the investment for his new project. And now he was exhausted. But when he opened the door, he met with the unfamiliar silence in the house.
Damien closed the door behind him and loosened his tie, his gaze sweeping over the living room. The room was dimly lit while he was sure Evelyn always kept it bright so that it would feel welcoming.
"Evelyn?" he called only to receive the mocking silence of the room. He went upstairs. Could it be that she was sad because he asked her to leave and was crying in her room.
With that thought, his heart was warm. If only she had apologized for complaining to his mother and accepted her mistake, he would not have been that harsh to her. He did not enjoy scolding her but she did not leave him a choice.
Forget it! If she would cry a lot, he would give her another chance and take her back to the office, as long as she learned from her mistakes and did not repeat them. He opened the door ready to coax her but the room was cold and empty.
His frown deepened as he opened the study room, music room and sunroom where she often spent her time but each of them was as empty and cold as the first one.
In the past three years of their cold, fractured marriage, Evelyn had never once returned home after him. She was always there waiting for him, tucked away like a ghost in her own house. She had always been in the living room to welcome him. Now she did not even have an office, where could she go?
He checked his watch. It was almost 8:30. Evelyn did not have many friends or a social life without him. Where could she go? A quiet irritation stirred inside him. He pulled out his phone and dialed her number.
It rang once, twice but no one picked up. Just when he was about to cut the call and try again with rising tension, the front door creaked open.
Evelyn stepped in with a leisurely smile on her face. She shut the door behind her and didn't even flinch upon seeing him standing in the middle of the room with a hard expression.
"Where were you?" Damien asked in a cold but flat voice.
Evelyn raised an eyebrow. "Ah, I did not realize it was that late. Have you been waiting for dinner?"
"It is not about dinner." His voice darkened when she did not reply to him at once. "Where did you go exactly?"
She dropped her handbag onto the console and unfastened her earrings as she replied, "oh, nothing much. After leaving the office, I found a flyer and went to try my luck in an interview there."
The silence that followed her words was deafening. Damien's expression froze and his face twisted with a dark look.
"What?" His voice dropped lower, but the anger in it was unmistakable. "Why the hell would you need a job? You are my wife."
Evelyn turned slightly, studying him. This was the first time he had announced her as his wife on his own accord without the force of his family or for social obligation. And that disturbed her more than any argument could have.
"Am I?" she asked softly with an amused smile on her face.
The simple question knocked the wind out of him. She didn't ask it like someone seeking reassurance. She asked it like someone stating a fact she no longer believed.
His jaw tensed. "Of course you are. What kind of nonsense is going on in your mind, Evelyn? We took our marriage certificates three years ago. Or do you want me to bring them out to show you?"
"Then let me ask you something, Damien," she interrupted in a soft but steady voice, "What does being your wife mean?"
He stared at her.
"I have been in this house for three years," she continued, her fingers brushing her wrist absentmindedly. "And yet you never touched me. You always told me that you did not see me as your wife and that you do not want me around you. You always told me that I did not have a life without you and I am pathetic. And now that I stepped out to do something with my life, you are suddenly upset?"
"You don't need to work," he said, more defensive now. "You don't need to go out there begging for jobs when I can offer you one in the office."
"I wasn't begging," she said with a calm smile. "I have qualifications to get the job and if you worried that I used your name to get it, then I did not. I only gave my maiden name since that is on my certificates."
Something inside him recoiled at her words. He had heard Evelyn speak countless times, but never like this. She had never challenged his words or stated facts against him, It made him feel exposed. Still, he could not accept it.
"You won't work. That's final," he said in a frosty tone now. "You don't need to, and I won't have strangers interfering in our personal life."
Evelyn tilted her head. "How could doing a job affect our personal life?"
"Because then you would be too busy to handle the house." he snapped, making her chuckle.
It was a light, hollow sound that held no humor. "You don't even like me, Damien. Why do you care where I go or who I meet? Shouldn't you be glad I am keeping myself busy so I don't disturb your perfect world?" Her words echoed in the room with a thunderous sound that stunned him.
He didn't respond right away. For a moment, something foreign stirred in his chest. But it was gone as quickly as it came, smothered beneath layers of habit and pride.
"You are behaving strangely,"